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Topic: Lemon Verbena (Read 5311 times)

So I was given a lemon verbena plant from work and told to clone the Stone 16th anniversary IPA, no intentions on making a clone. Has anyone ever worked with lemon verbena before? I am not sure when to add it… the boil, primary, secondary or even how much to use??? Any help would be appreciated.

How much did you use for the ice cream? And how much would you suggest for a 5 gallon batch?

I used about a cup of loosely packed leaves and soft tender stems in the icecream. I would think you would want probably twice that much for 5 gallons of beer. I suppose you could soak the leaves in vodka for the fermentation period and dose to taste at packaging as well. That might actually be ideal as it gives you control over the level of flavour and you don't have to worry about boiling off the volatiles either in the boil or with the co2 during fermentation. also you wouldn't have to worry about adding unsanitized leaves to your beer in the late stages of fermentation or secondary.

Soaking the leaves in ethanol will extract a significant amount of chlorophyll. Green beer anyone?

true. didn't think of that. although lemon verbena is not an overly green plant but I suspect, given some experience with soaking... other plant material in ethanol it's more of a greenish brown than true green. I suspect the amount you will end up adding will be small enough that unless it is a really light colored beer it won't make much impact. but this is just coming straight out of my... well you get the idea.